Christgau's Consumer Guide

It's the time of year when I start going back over marginalia looking
for A records, often to no avail--you'll notice that the only
"surprises" are in African music (where I try to limit myself, by the
way, to newish releases that can be purchased in the States). The
Morells, John Anderson, and Music Youth all came close, though, and
you can be sure to encounter more relatively obscure genre artists
next month about the time the 1982 Pazz & Jop Critics' Poll is
due.

JOHN ANDERSON: Wild and Blue (Warner Bros.) Anderson is
Ricky Skaggs without Jesus--his voice lowdown rather than angelic, his
roots in the honky tonks rather than the mountains, his album wild and
blue, a sexier way to say (and sing) highways and heartaches. But his
gift for ballads is still a little soft, which means he comes up a
touch short on the ones you know and can't quite turn filler into the
staff of life. B PLUS

BAD RELIGION: How Could Hell Be Any Worse? (Epitaph)
Greg Graffin's vocals fall into a naturally musical off-key drone that
make him sound at times like a mullah in mourning, which is
appropriate--he's not as arrogant about his nihilism as most hardcore
kids. On the other hand, he's not as funny about it as the best ones,
either. B

BUS BOYS: American Worker (Arista) At first I was no
more impressed by this professional black arena-rock than I am by,
say, professional lesbian folk-rock. Less, actually--bombast is
annoying. But in the end I was disarmed by the audacity, esprit, and
sheer versatility--not many arena-rockers are comfortable simulating
funk, reggae, and surf music--and won over by the songs themselves,
every one informed by the kind of middle-American compassion you might
expect from a black band with enough soul to hope to touch the
arena-rock masses. B PLUS

MARSHALL CHAPMAN: Take It On Home (Rounder) Having
failed to connect as a rip-roaring rock-and-roller, she now fails to
connect as a Nashville gal. Except on two cuts, that is--"Bizzy Bizzy
Bizzy" and "Booze in Your Blood," both of which sound pissed off. Hear
me, Marshall? I said pissed off. C PLUS

CLIFTON CHENIER: I'm Here! (Alligator) Especially in a
rhythmically conservative style like zydeco, it's rare that a band can
carry an album, but that's the story here. First record I've ever
heard hot enough to convince me that all those wild tales about the
accordion man weren't so much pepper sauce. Just too bad it happened
after he began to lose his strength. B

DEVO: Oh, No! It's Devo (Warner Bros.) Because their
secret contempt for their cult receded once the cult gathered mass,
moral impassivity that once seemed like a misanthropic copout (or
worse) now has the feel of Brechtian strategy. They've never sounded
wimpier, but they've never sounded catchier either, and with this band
wimpiness has a comic purpose. "Time Out for Fun" is recommended as
both text and music to leisure theorists who reject electropop as a
matter of humanistic principle. A MINUS
[Later: B+]

DIRE STRAITS: Love Over Gold (Warner Bros.) I admit that
Mark Knopfler is a classy enough guitarist and producer to entice me
into his nostalgic obsessions: at its best "Telegraph Road" sounds
like supernal Mark-Almond, and the cheesy organ on "Industrial
Disease" betrays a sense of humor. But the portentous arrangements on
the other three cuts (right, that makes five, mean length 8:24)
suggest nothing so much as ELP with blues roots. And Knopfler's
sarcastic impression of a Harley Street M.D. on the very same
"Industrial Disease" leaves no doubt that even his sense of humor is
pompous. C PLUS

EDI FITZROY: Youthman Penitentiary (Alligator) "With the
Roots Radics Band," announces a subtitle, and that's the usual good
sign. "Featuring his three 1982 top 10 Jamaican hits!" crows a
sticker, and I wish I were sure that the third one (after the title
track and "First Class Citizen," which gives itself away with a dub)
were "Dread Locks Party" and its borrowed sax, not "African Queen" and
its stolen Sedaka. "The only new vocal star to emerge this year,"
inform the notes, and I hope 1983's has more than one trick in his or
her gullet. B

JONI MITCHELL: Wild Things Run Fast (Geffen) This is
good Joni, for the first time since the mid-'70s, and I suspect it
comes too late, because good Joni simply means old Joni, and old Joni
is better. I mean, if she'd put "Solid Love" at the very end I still
wouldn't believe her, but at least I'd think she'd learned
something. Instead she proves her maturity with a climactic hymn to
St. Paul's kind of love which is much the worst of the three
covers--because to be honest the Al Hibbler and Elvis Presley songs
are what kept me listening. B

THE MORELLS: Shake and Push (Borrowed) These four
permanent residents of Springfield, Missouri, and environs unearth
minor classics Dave Edmunds would give his doctorate for. New
rockabilly doesn't come any more authentic or less purist than "Eager
Boy" (he wants to be a senator) or "Ugly and Slouchy" (she won't
cheat) or their own "Red's" (eats). But Rockpile, the Blasters, even
the Stray Cats fire their roots into the future with an edgy intensity
that's missing from the performances and recording here, which makes
the difference on a record that might have been a minor classic
itself. B PLUS

MUSICAL YOUTH: The Youth of Today (MCA) The miraculous
"Pass the Dutchie" was originally a fine Mighty Diamonds song called
"Pass the Koochie," so even though the arrangement is pure genius and
the switch from ganja (a koochie is a pipe) to food (a dutchie is a
cookpot) pure social responsibility, they've yet to write their first
hit. And with reggae bands, not to mention kid bands (even English
bands), one-shots are an old story. So I regret to report that the
album evinces neither pop songcraft nor the signature groove with
which seasoned reggae artists compensate. And am surprised to add that
between young Kelvin's biddle-biddle toasts and the reggae songcraft
they do command--check out "Youth of Today" and "Young
Generation"--they almost get by and then some. B PLUS
[Later: B]

THE NAIROBI SOUND (Original Music) It's not
"primitivism" or "simplicity" that makes African pop so exciting--it's
the doubly complex interaction of two sophisticated demotic languages,
polyrhythm and technomedia, each with its own style of
self-consciousness. Unlike his Africa Dances, however, this
John Storm Roberts anthology has a folkloric feel. Very local in
origin and outreach and not really intended for dancing, these Kenyan
tunes, especially those in the acoustic (and rural) "dry guitar"
style, have enormous charm and not much impact, except for those
always special moments of inspiration that propel folk music out into
the great world--like the soprano duo "Chemirocha," which technomedia
fans will be pleased to learn is a tribute to Jimmie
Rodgers. B PLUS

RANDY NEWMAN: Trouble in Paradise (Warner Bros.) The
reason 1979's Born Again took three years to sink in for me was
that Newman never pinned down the distance between himself and the
creeps he wrote his first-person songs about. Because he's gained
control as a singer, his oafish drawl here turns into a unifying
voice, and the accompaniments are as eloquently integral as the
American-colloquial pastiche of his Ragtime soundtrack. So this
time the baffled racist of "Christmas in Capetown" and the
happy-go-lucky Disney hero of "I'm Different" and the sentimental pimp
of "Same Girl" and the mournfully manipulative patriot of "Song for
the Dead" and the unflappably egoistic rock star of the outrageous "My
Life Is Good" all seem to be the same guy. And while that guy isn't
Newman, Newman does go out of his way to understand his point of
view. A MINUS

ORCHESTRA MAKASSY: Agwaya (Virgin import) Four sweet
male vocalists dominate this clear, buoyant fifteen-man group from
Tanzania, who like all Tanzanian musicians have to travel to Kenya to
record their pioneering East African variation on ur-Cuban Congolese
styles. Salsa-shaped (a mere three drums) and calypso-inflected, their
song forms will relieve or perplex listeners whose contact with
Afropop begins and ends with Sunny Ade--they're much simpler. Those
who find Ade too damn pleasant will be relieved to learn that Makassy
occasionally cut the lovely flow with soulful grit in a lead vocal or
sax solo. Me, I love them because they're lovely. A MINUS

THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS: Forever Now (Columbia) It's not
band breakdown (Duncan Kilburn's sax replaced, John Ashton's guitar
gone) nor pop sellout (Todd Rundgren in for Steve Lillywhite at the
board) nor tired songcraft (hookier than the junk-punk debut if more
ornate than the powerhouse follow-up) that makes this quite
entertaining album less than credible. It's the half-life of cynicism
as a public stance. Last time Richard Butler's surprising new
emotionality made for a winning world-weariness, but this time it
sounds just slightly pat, more or less what you'd expect from a quite
likable phony. A MINUS

RANK AND FILE: Sundown (Slash) As rock concepts go these
days, the idea of making like the fourth-best bar band in Wichita
Falls is plenty warm-blooded, so that even though I disapprove in
theory of the loud, klutzy dynamics of this ex-punk country-rock, its
zeal wins me over every time. Helps that they leave "Wabash
Cannonball" etc. off the album and explain their excellent motives in
their own words, fleshed out with a few of the guitar licks they found
lying around that bar. A MINUS

SOUND D'AFRIQUE II: SOUKOUS (Mango) Despite a
misleadingly tribal (though hardly unpop) lead cut from Mali, Mango's
second French African compilation avoids the eclectic distractions of
the first by concentrating on the Congolese dance style that dominates
the continent's music if anything does. Hard, salsified stuff with
vocals that twist and shout, recommended to unreconstructable
urbanists. A MINUS
[Later]

SOWETO (Rough Trade import) It's fair to assume that
these fourteen crude, tuneful little singles, released six or seven
years ago out of a Johannesburg record shop and featuring a
writer-producer named Wilbur Dlamini and a backing band of Jo'burg
Zulus called the Bamalangabis, are typical of nothing. They're
apolitical except by their sheer existence, mostly small-group
instrumental, with guitar, sax, and organ leads. Not too clearly
recorded, either. And they're delightful. It's possible Dlamini is a
lost genius. It's also possible that when I've heard more music from
South Africa's hellish black urban work zones I'll find him minor or
derivative. But what's certain is that a lot of very talented people
are getting lost in black South Africa. Ain't capitalism grand?
A MINUS

TELEVISION: The Blow Up (ROIR cassette) John Piccarella
and I annotated this eighty-five-minute tape because guitar heroes
like Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd deserve a heroic live album. You
get three new cover versions, too. But as with so many ROIR cassettes
(and nonchromium tapes in general), audio makes the difference between
a laudable document and living history. That the sound could have been
brighter is more than clear on Arrow, the bootleg disc where I
first encountered the finest of these performances, still available at
Rock's in Your Head. You pays your money--the tape is 35 minutes
longer for the same bucks--and so forth. B PLUS
[Later]

THE WHO: It's Hard (Warner Bros.)Tommy's
operatic pretensions were so transparent that for years it seemed safe
to guess that Townshend's musical ideas would never catch up with his
lyrics. And it fact they didn't--both became more prolix at about the
same rate. This isn't so grotesque as All the Blind Chinamen Have
Western Eyes, but between the synths and the book-club poetry it's
the nearest thing to classic awful English art-rock since Genesis
discovered funk. Best tune: "Eminence Front," on which Townshend
discovers funk. Just in time. Bye. C

Additional Consumer News

Suddenly I'm feeling overwhelmed by singles again, and not just
because I'm catching up. The last three months of 1982 were definitely
a hot time. . . .

Tops is definitely Musical Youth's "Pass the Dutchie" (MCA), which I
bought after one hearing in England last October, which between BLS
and MTV may actually break Stateside, and which David Johansen, bless
him, is already covering. Album's fine too (see above), but a record
as bright as this (or "Sexual Healing") (or "I Want You Back") is what
I call a single. My other raves are B sides: both the
Pretenders' "My City Was Gone" (Sire), a piece of radical patriotism
that's an even more telling vehicle for Billy Bremner's rhythm-comp
riffs than "Back on the Chain Gang," and Prine's "How Come U Don't
Call Me Anymore" (Warner Bros.), a spare gospelish vocal workout
designed to shut up the fools who accuse him of soullessness, will be
in my top 20. Devo's "Find Out" (b/w "Peak-n-Boo") (Warner Bros.) si
non-LP advice that's worth a listen. I also prefer the B of Dangerous
Birds' two-sided "Alpha Romeo"/"Smile on Your Face" (Propeller),
certainly the U.S. indie single of the year with its mix of strums,
funks, and avant harmonies. (White) New York indie of the year is also
two-sided and probably a fluke: the Stripesearch's "Hey Kid" is
pissed-off, undeniable tenement punk of the sort that rarely comes off
any more, and it's b/w "Who Shot Sadat?" by Emily XYZ, a
daughter-of-Patti poetry reader whose beat, boosted by just the right
sheet metal percussion, reminds me more of Anne Waldman (Vinyl
Repellant). Flipper's "Get Away"/"The Old Lady Who Swallowed the Fly!"
(Subterranean) is power-drone black-comic bohemian-realist
paranoia-common sense that would probably gather even more momentum as
an album, b/w one of the great p.d. covers of all time, and even
nonbuyers should check out the sleeve, on which the old lady works on
the cat while the dog, the minister, and the rhinoceros wait their
turn. I also admire Robert Wyatt's version of Elvis Costello's
"Shipbuilding" (Rough Trade import), a typically oblique and chilling
take on the Falklands adventure: the 12-inch mix of Altered Images' "I
Could Be Happy" (Epic/Virgin), all of Clare Whatzername that history
will ever need; Soft Cell's "Where the Heart Is"/"It's a Mugs Game"
(Phonogram/Some Bizarre import), the A a sob story about why kids
can't stay home and the B a laff riot about what happens to them when
they go out; and Billy Idol's "White Wedding" (Chrysalis), a 12-inch
worth buying only at seven-inch prices, especially as Billy now allows
as how it's sarcasm rather than best wishes. . . .

The Weather Girls' "It's Raining Men" (Columbia 12-inch) si proving
unusually controversial for a dance novelty (three minus votes in the
Pazz & Jop Product Report are the tip of the iceberg). It's the
ultimate gay disco song, in which four hefty-voiced black women are
set loose on what is much more a gay than a women's fantasy, and I
love it--for its humor and for its uncompromising extravagance, from
lyric to singing to orchestration to arrangement to beat. Another
lovable novelty is Captain Sensible's "Wot" (A&M import 12-inch),
a/k/a Son of the Damned Meta Great-Grandson of Another One Bites Good
Times, if the video doesn't convert you you're cathode immune, and the
B is Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Happy Talk," which went number one
you know where. Melle Mel & Duke Bootee's "Message II Survival"
(Sugarhill 12-inch) obviously isn't the equal of the record of the
year but it's a brave and worthy follow-up lowering the tempo into a
rhythmic, ominous synth texture you'll want to hear again. The
Treacherous Three's "Yes We Can-Can" (Sugarhill 12-inch) brings the
South Bronx (and Englewood) to the Crescent City, funking with Lee
Dorsey's lassitude and Allen Toussaint's positivity, with the B-side
instrumental the finest ur-Meters record in years. The Cold Crew's
"Rappin' Christmas" (Profile 12-inch) begins by announcing that "Santa
Claus is a black man," then mugs him and goes on from there. Also
recommended are Indeep's no-kitchen-sink-but "Last Night a D.J. Saved
My Life" (Becket 12-inch), in which the percussion includes a flushing
toilet, and I Level's "Give Me" (Virgin/Epic), the best plea to a
virgin since "Tonight's the Night." . . .

Three African 12-inches are also on my turntable (well actually I've
hometaped them 'cause cassettes are easier than big 45s on my
system, but what the hell, they're all imports anyway): Orchestre
Jazira's "Love"/"Devedi" (Earth Works), midway between the gentleness
of juju and the brass of soukous; Kabala's "Voltan Dance"/"Ashewo Ara"
(Red Flame), bass-heavy and getting disco play; and (an indulgence)
the slightly shortened, remixed version of Sunny Ade's "Ja Funmi"
(Island). . . .

Joe Piscopo's "I Love Rock 'n' Roll (Medley)" (Columbia), in which a
Hoboken old waver modernizes, in an even funnier parody than Bruce
Springstone's Live at Bedrock (Clean Cuts). Springstone's
"(Meet the Flintstones" and "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," while good
for a few chuckles, don't live up to the promise of his tape-spinning
introductory rap about Fred and Wilma. On the Piscopo record almost
everything--intonation, ad libs, arrangements--might make you laugh,
including the three-in-the-morning rendition of "Born to Run," by his
good friend Bruce Springstine. My only cavil is that CBS is pushing a
12-inch; the seven-inch is more cost-effective, though you'll miss out
on "I Know What Boys Like" and (perfect) "Life During Wartime."